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The expected resignation of Andy MacPhail as Orioles president of baseball operations did not occur on Thursday for a simple reason.

Orioles owner Peter Angelos is trying to convince MacPhail to remain with the team in either a decision-making capacity or advisory role, according to major-league sources.

A decision could come at any time, and there is pressure for the Orioles to move quickly; baseball frowns upon teams making major announcements during the postseason, and the playoffs begin Friday night.

There have been a number of rumors lately that current O’s manager Buck Showalter is going to move to the front office and take over as the GM if, and most likely when, Andy MacPhail departs.

Don spoke with a front office official who said this when asked about Buck taking over as GM: “Buck [Showalter] is not a long term guy and [is] the wrong person to take over.”

I’d assume what he means by this is that Showalter is going to build for the short term. Rather than working with the young core of players and hoping to contend in a few years, Buck may ship younger Orioles in trades to try win now.

I personally agree with this GM and do not think the Orioles have a realistic chance to compete next year. I have my eyes on 2013 or 2014.

According to our own Don Olsen, the Orioles have reached out to a GM candidate whose name has been floated by the Baltimore media.

This candidate was contacted by the Orioles although states that the Orioles were “strictly feeling me out”. The candidate has stressed that there has been no interview and that it was simply a feeling out process.

Of course, this does not mean that Andy MacPhail and Buck Showalter are no longer being considered for the GM and manager position. And still, even after hearing this, Don still believes that the MacPhail and Showalter combo is staying.

Although these brief, initial conversations happen often when GM & manager searches are conducted, it at least shows that the Orioles are preparing themselves in case MacPhail does not return.

I really hope MacPhail is not back as the GM (or the Director of Operations or whatever his fancy title is).In 4 years he has done nothing to improve the front office, scouting department, or player development department. He has done nothing to improve the minor leagues (we literally do not have one legit prospect at AA or AAA). He has admitted he has no interest in paying for the top international talents. He failed to sign any premium position players that he claimed was part of his great plan. Most of his free agent signings have all been terrible. His long term contract with Markakis has so far been a terrible decision on his part and is looking like it will only get worse. Do I even have to get started with Hobgood? The team has not won 70 games once under his watch. I'm sure there is a lot more negative things to say about the man but I'm going to stop now before I end up sitting here for the next hour typing this message.On the bright side, he is not bad at trading. Overall his trades haven't been impressive but the JJ Hardy deal was a thing of beauty and the fact he somehow convinced Hardy to sign an extremely team friendly extension was remarkable.

ofahn wrote: Andy MacPhail was the right guy at the right time for this team. He was hired to replace a two headed monster that did not work and he convinced Peter Angelos that significant changes needed to be made throughout the organization BUT the team has grown beyond his ability to improve it and it’s time for a change.

MacPhail convinced Angelos to increase the budget for amateur signings to the point where we will probably see as much talent make it to the majors from the 2008 through 2010 drafts as we did for 1999 through 2007 combined.

MacPhail has failed to invest in the International market. This may be due to his unwillingness to cultivate that market or his inability to convince Angelos to spend more money there. I don’t believe in stupid bonuses for talent they haven’t seen in game situations but, build an adequate international scouting staff and you can see these players during games.

MacPhail made a very good trade for Eric Bedard, and a good trade for Miguel Tejada. You could argue that we should have received more for Tejada and would have the previous July (before MacPhail came aboard) if Angelos hadn’t nixed the trade.

That being said, MacPhail could not have pulled off a Colby Rasmus trade like the Blue Jays did last month. His method is just too methodical and I question whether he does well thinking outside of the box. To make the kind of trades I will suggest further on in this piece requires an aggressive GM that MacPhail has never been. I see him to be better suited as a "checks and balances" guy overseeing an aggressive GM like Anthopoulos in Toronto.